For those who don't know, Airbnb allows private home owners to rent them, in whole or in part, to users of this online platform, based in San Francisco, California.
The website www.airbnb.pt, was created in 2008 and allows for easy navigation to search for accommodations in over 34,000 cities and 191 countries. Altogether, this service competing with traditional tourist accommodations, has already provided more than 60 million overnight stays.
Lisbon and Porto, as well as other Portuguese cities, have enthusiastically joined this new business modality. Only in Lisbon, in the space of 2 years, the business tripled. It is estimated that in this city the number of houses with advertisements published on Airbnb already exceeds 2,000.
Following a different course from that of his European counterparts, Fernando Medina is betting on this type of accommodation for tourists, not least because the rate recently created for overnight stays in Lisbon (1 euro per night, with the maximum limit of 7 €) will surpass the annual forecast of EUR 7 million, partly due to the agreement between CML and Airbnb. According to statements by the Mayor of Lisbon to Bloomberg:
"This is the first time that tourism is allowing many people to participate in the city's development process. We must not be afraid of this new dynamic, we must not be afraid of growth. On the contrary, we must prepare the city to receive even more tourists ".
In addition to private advertisers who aim to make an occasional profit, there are investors who see this segment as attractive and many houses have been acquired with the purpose of, after being remodeled, entering the local accommodation circuit and thus providing an income higher than that of other segments of real estate investment.
On the other hand, there are other European cities (Paris, Berlin, etc.) that are concerned with the rapid growth of this type of tourist accommodation, as it contributes to "expelling" the inhabitants that reside in the historic centers of the same.
Airbnb is not the only platform for finding and booking houses for short-term rentals, although it is the most used, but you can find a more complete list of alternatives to Airbnb here .